


Lords of the Fae

by StarlightAsteria



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: All the Severus feels, Angst, Apprentice!Fic, F/M, HP: EWE, It's how he survived the Shrieking Shack, Lucius and Severus bromance, Severus Snape Lives, Severus is actually one of the Dark Fae, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-12-01 01:01:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11475321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightAsteria/pseuds/StarlightAsteria
Summary: All the King's horses and all the King's menCouldn't put Severus Snape together againSeverus Snape falls in love. Hermione Granger does not.





	Lords of the Fae

Part One: All the King's Horses

 

* * *

 

_All the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men_

_Couldn’t put Severus Snape together again_

 

* * *

 

 

Severus lowers the set of phials carefully onto the workbench nearest to his desk, his work for the day - the last day of Hermione Granger’s Potions apprenticeship - finished at long last. He is tired, grime covers his hands, but if he does not speak now, he never will, and he knows only too well the perils of remaining silent - he will not make the same mistake twice.

 

“Miss Granger?” His voice is soft and even, carrying in the silence of the lab. 

 

“Sir?” his apprentice replies, turning from her spot near the door. 

 

“A word, if I may?”

 

“Of course.” Her brow furrows in confusion. “Was I not meant to have packed up - ”

 

“No.” He waves a hand dismissively. “That’s fine. No, I wished to discuss something else,” he continues, coming round to lean elegantly against his desk. 

 

“Yes, sir.” 

 

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Your apprenticeship is complete - you’ve earned the right to call me Severus, I should think.”

 

Her eyes widen, but she remains silent.

 

“In any case, I won’t take much of your time now; I only wished to ask, now that your apprenticeship is complete, whether you should like to accompany me to dinner at some point in the next week?”

 

“Why?” She chokes out.

 

His fingers tighten imperceptibly on the desk. He can’t read the tightness in her voice, but he answers her anyway, voice low and earnest, his eyes soft as they take in her figure - her hair, despite the humidity of the lab, is no longer the bushy mess it was when she was a child, and her petite form is lithe, curves not entirely hidden by the smart apprentice robes she wears; she is all that is lovely, and he swallows unsteadily. “I find I have come to care for you, very much.”

 

“I - no.” 

 

He blinks. “I - ” his tongue is lead in his mouth; he clears his throat and tries again. He shoves the sudden swell of hurt that grips his chest behind his Occlumency shields and manages to keep his voice only slightly clipped. “Might I ask for your reasoning?”

 

There is surely a reasonable explanation - she might already have engagements this week, celebrating the successful completion of her apprenticeship, she might (as painful as the thought is) already have her eye on another. 

 

She stares at him, astonished, before setting down her satchel on a stool with a huff. 

 

“Isn’t my refusal enough?”

 

He is genuinely thrown by her reply, and by the hostility he senses in her tone.

 

But she seems not to notice, because she is already continuing: “You already keep me here in the lab all day; what makes you think I wanted to spend my leisure time with you as well? Why on earth would I want to spend more time with a man who has made the last ten years of my life absolute hell, always so sarcastic, playing favourites; why would I go out with a man who makes absolutely no bones about the fact that he simply cannot stand my friends? And not being content with that, has insulted and tormented- ” 

 

He cannot be silent a moment more. “My manner has always been professional - ”

 

“Professional!” A bitter, hysterical laugh bursts from her lips. “That was what you called your every interaction with Sirius, did you?”

 

“You go too far- ” 

 

“You have an excuse for everything, don’t you? You’re a cantankerous bastard, you know that? Being a war-hero doesn’t make you a good person. No, Severus Snape, you might be a war-hero, but you are also cruel and vicious and bitter, and I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last man on earth.”

 

"You left me to die - "

 

"I'm beginning to wish you had."

 

He can’t breathe; can’t do anything except will the tears back down his throat, can’t do anything except watch her, dumbfounded. 

 

“Why then - ” he chokes out “ - did you wish to become my apprentice?”

 

“Don’t misunderstand me;” she replies ( _her voice is steel, and she cuts through his flesh, his mind, his heart, his soul as though he were made of ribbons_ ) “I apprenticed myself to you because I wanted to prove you wrong. Werewolves aren’t monsters, as you’ve so often asserted, without any reasonable justification ( _so easily, so quickly she forgets that Remus Lupin almost killed him when he was sixteen, Severus thinks acidly)_ and the new Wolfsbane potion that is the subject of my Mastery will prove that. Being in your unpleasant presence was a necessary evil; and after the presentation ceremony tomorrow I’ll be free of you entirely, you foul, ugly git.”

 

Beyond the ringing in his ears and his pulse thundering in his mouth ( _he struggles not to retch up his lunch)_ he somehow realises that there is nothing more to say.  Any attempt to defend himself - she has made it abundantly apparent that she has no compassion for him, even knowing of his activities as a double agent during the two wars, the injuries he sustained, and his spine made of steel and more courage than possessed by most Gryffindors - would not change anything. Her opinion of him is quite fixed. 

 

He waves his left hand and the lab door opens with a thud. 

 

“You have made yourself quite clear, madam,” he says softly, the fight bleeding out of him like a dying animal. 

 

It is only after she has left that he releases the death grip he has on his desk, and he collapses onto the flagstones, legs giving out from under him like a marionette which has had its strings cut. 

 

He curls up, hugging his knees to his chest, chin tucked in, hands fisted in his black robes, trying desperately to keep himself together. It’s futile to rail at fate, he supposes; though he laughs darkly at the irony at being saved from death only to experience the agony that is unrequited love once again; for he has fallen in love with her.

 

And why should he not have? He has many faults, he knows, but he has some qualities too, surely? He had hoped that Hermione might find some of her kindness for him. And he is not ashamed of loving; just because his feelings are unreturned and unwanted does not make them less true or less valid; he is as allowed to fall in love as anyone else. Though this will be cold comfort, he knows, in the long, cold and empty nights that stretch ahead. 

 

Has he not atoned enough for the mistakes of his youth? has he not given enough of himself? what more do people want? what more is there to give?

 

He had thought, having survived the Shrieking Shack - which had not been his plan at all; after a year of even more crippling isolation, with everyone thinking him a traitor, after a year of torture and exhaustion even worse than the previous three, he had been waiting for death; after all, what had he had to live for - that vindication was quite a nice feeling, and that finally, finally, the enormity of his sacrifices, the qualities he had displayed, his fortitude, his endurance, it all might be acknowledged and that he could then live out the rest of his life in well earned comfort, brewing for pleasure and perhaps even starting a family.

 

He should have known better, really. 

 

Had he really thought, after so long, that his luck would change? 

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes screaming silently, tears rolling down his cheeks, hands grabbing at the empty air, gripping at something that has never been there and never will be there. 

 

Loneliness always has been and always will be his sole bedfellow. _(Not warmth and light and love and pleasure, not a wife)_  

 

* * *

 

 

He claps, expression stoic, as his ex-Apprentice is presented with her Mastery pins, and he remains scrupulously, icily polite, bowing and murmuring the correct pleasantries in his usual drawl throughout the champagne reception that follows. He drinks not a drop and eats not a thing, surreptitiously vanishing the champagne and canapés, too aware of just how tenuous his self control is. He catches sight of her, laughing and happy with her friends and turns away where before he would have approached her and engaged in debates about this or that Potions article, about whether Mozart or Puccini were better composers, or whether chocolate éclairs or profiteroles were the pastry of choice for afternoon tea. 

 

He misses her already, he realises heavily; he misses her energy, her wit, the way she crackles with energy when she gets riled up (which he now realises must be her polite antagonism - how on _earth_ had he, the Master Spy, misread her so completely? He must have seen only what he wanted to see, he realises sadly). He misses marvelling at the intuitive, butterfly-like turns of her mind, he misses her smile that exposes a dimple on her left cheek when she finally gets a potion just right - he misses her, all of her.

 

But she has made her position clear; and he is a gentleman. He will respect her decision, as he respected Lily’s. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Lucius, I can take this no more,” he sighs, swirling his tumbler in his hand. 

 

“Oh, brother,” his friend replies softly. 

 

“What’s the use of falling in love if - if all it brings is agony!” He hurls the glass into the fireplace, where it shatters upon the stone and the whisky crackles up in flames. “Enough. Enough.”

 

“What do you want to do, Severus?”

 

“Die. Die, or disappear, at the very least.”

 

“Where will you go?”

 

“Where I cannot be found except by those who already know where I am.”

 

There is a long, melancholy sort of silence.

 

“Look after House Slytherin for me, Lucius?”

 

“You have my word, brother.”

 

And that is that.

 


End file.
